Bottleneck

Main Use

Bottleneck Analysis identifies and visualizes the impact individual process steps have on process performance and throughput to detect the best automation and improvement candidates. The impact of the events is determined by the time interval. The platform then produces key metrics that can be sorted upon in order to have a clear list of top processes to improve.

Benefits

Performing a bottleneck analysis can offer a variety of important benefits. The obvious advantage is that it can help you to eliminate the bottleneck and get work flowing at a more steady pace.

Advantages:

Cause of the Bottleneck – Identifying the root cause of a bottleneck; Give actionable insight to enable the creation of a long term fix that will keep the problem from happening again in the future.

Enables a Streamlined Workflow – Once the bottleneck is addressed, work can flow through from start to finish in at an even rate.

Eliminate Waste – Bottlenecks are often caused by unnecessary or inefficient processes, which result in a variety of types of waste. Being aware of the waste is the first step in having it eliminated.

Improve Knowledge – The more you know about a specific process, the easier it is to make smart decisions. This can provide advantages not only when it comes to eliminating bottlenecks, but when making process improvement decisions in general.

Overview

Definition of Transition Time

Time from the event to the next – Amount of time spent between this event and the next subsequent event in the timeline

Time from the event to the previous – Amount of time elapsed between this event and the prior subsequent event in the timeline

Time defined by second timestamp – Amount of time spent between this event and a second field which records a second timestamp for this event (ex. EndDateTime)

Time between events – Using most common event transitions, shows the amount of time spent between 2 commonly adjacent events

Chart Fields

Transitions – # of times event occurs across all timelines

Per Timeline – # of times event occurs on average per timeline

Average Time – Average time between this event and subsequent/prior event

Total Time – Total time spent between this event and subsequent/prior event

Total Time % – % of total overall processing time spent between this event and subsequent/prior event

Avoiding Bottleneck Operations

Completing the bottleneck analysis is just the first step in a longer process of improving the efficiency of processes. Taking the information gathered from the analysis and using it to make process changes is the next task that needs to be completed.

Users that take the time to analyze this type of information, and use it to avoid bottleneck in their operations will help to ensure a more efficient process today, and long into the future.

Rather than just identifying what appears to be the surface cause of a bottleneck, the next step would be to really dig into the data to discover the root cause. See Dimensions and Breakdown for more about drilling into dimensional data and worker, department, location or other attributes.